A UAE
property company is reportedly offering customers Caribbean passports when they
buy a villa.
Ajman-based Sweet Homes is offering Antiguan and Barbudian
passports to incentivise selected luxury villa purchases, according to Middle East Eye.
However, the
villas are not in Antigua or Barbuda, but in Sweet Homes’ Ajman Uptown
development, due for completion in 2020.
The offer applies to 600 of the 1,500-unit scheme, including a
two-bedroom villa costing AED1.4 million ($380,000) and a four-bedroom villa
priced at AED1.9 million ($517,000).
The passports are reportedly on offer for
the purchaser, his or her partner, dependent children and parents over the age
of 65.
The government of Antigua and Barbuda
launched a so-called Citizenship by Investment programme in 2013, in an attempt
to boost an economy that received 63 percent of its $1.2 billion GDP from the
tourism industry in 2013.
Such programmes are a draw for overseas
investors who often need multiple forms of identification, such as a visa in
addition to their home-country passport, to travel to certain parts of the
world. Obtaining a Caribbean passport allows them to travel visa-free in many
cases.
For Emiratis, there is a clear benefit in
having an Antiguan and Barbadian passport as it allows visa-free or
visa-on-arrival travel to 132 countries, compared with 77 countries for a UAE
passport.
However, usually Citizenship by Investment
schemes cover investments in property in the host country – in this case,
Antigua or Barbuda.
Sweet Homes’ scheme reportedly only applies
to the villas built in the UAE – although it also offers anyone the opportunity
of becoming a Caribbean citizen for a donation of $200,000 to the countries’
National Development Fund.
Middle East Eye quotes chief executive Fahad Dero as saying: “AjmanUptown is the first project of its kind in the GCC region that allows the
buyers...to be eligible for citizenship, subject to due diligence and approval
from the government of Antigua and Barbuda.”
Villas in Ajman are very beautifully designed and well maintained.
